MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

7/22 Pitching matchups vs. Pirates

Looking ahead to the Cubs’ next series in Pittsburgh against the Pirates, the pitching matchups will be:

there is over a week left till the deadline and at least 4 other teams are looking at him. Yankees, Tigers, White Sox, Rangers, Angels, Nationals, Braves, and Giants could all benefit from getting Dempster into their rotation to help secure playoff spot. Pirates and Reds too but Cubs don’t trade too often within their own division. He vetoed Boston because he doesn’t think they have much of a chance, they have to start tearing it up just to get that second wild card spot. I personally hope we keep Dempster for another few years and I think he could help bring the team a lot of wins for another few seasons, he just needs better offense to back him up which he should be getting.

Keep Dempster for a few more years?
That is the problem with Cubs fans, they fall in love with these players.
Theo thinking is young players who are under control and can develop through the NEW Cubs system.
Dempster is a nice guy, but we can build from him through a trade.

the only thing i love about Dempster is his production, and it’s finally being paired with some descent cubs offense. And he can be a good team leader. There’s nothing wrong with having experienced players on your team. Trying to build a team with nothing but guys under and around 25 years old might not be the smartest baseball. And out of everyone the Cubs have had over the last few years, Dempster is really the only one I care to keep. That being said, I’m confident Epstein pays enough attention to sabermetrics to make the right decisions for this team.

The longer the Cubs go without making a trade the less we will receive in return. Dempster deserves to go to a team that has a chance to reach the playoffs. There just are no teams willing to give up the talent the Cubs are wanting in return. Don’t sell these guys for nothing. Wouldn’t it be great to see the Cubs turn things around with these two still on our staff. That’s a dream and not reality though. I’m a firm believer in “What goes around comes around”, and some day, in a couple of years, our Cubs will get even and then some.

agree with Cubs Talk, epstein’s model does not jibe with hanging onto veterans for the wrong reasons. anyone who doesn’t see the viability in building a team around a core group of young, cost-controlled players, hasn’t paid any attention to the oakland As over the last ten+ years. this year is no different: they’re playing great baseball, just swept the yanks in a four game set, and yet most people would be challenged to name 5 players on that team.
the difference between the cubs and the As is that once epstein successfully builds that core, he’s then got the spending latitude to add a few big impact free agents to the mix. i believe this is the best formula for eventually competing on a world-series caliber level.

after like 5 losing seasons in a row the A’s spent like 100 million on a few players in the last two years and didn’t lock them down for very long. And now they need to fight like hell just to make the wc spot this year. I’d rather we didn’t follow their formula. lol unless you were just referring to moneyball, but even then, most of the players we have don’t have high enough OBP to fit the equation. Also I’d bet that more Angels, Rangers, and Mariners’ fans probably know of more A’s players than us Cub fans, seeing as we almost never play them. And what does Dempster do that would make him the wrong player to keep? If we can’t get enough in return I see no reason to let his production go elsewhere.

And the A’s didn’t really build around a core group of young players. they built around a core group of undervalued players who varied pretty greatly in age. Age should never really be a big factor. It can help sure, but experience is going to win more ball games than youth.

look, dempster’s a fine player, great teammate, i like him. but the timing is wrong. he’s like 36 years old, and most (realistic) people think the cubs are at least two seasons away from being truly competitive. so while he’s obviously a nice player to have around, the thinking is that it’s better to get some pieces for him (even though it will make this year’s team worse) for the sake of those pieces maybe being able to help a couple years down the road when the team is competitive and it makes sense to add some big FA, or acquire a player via trade. if you want to say that the cubs should hold onto him if they can’t get fair value for him–fine. though i think much of this is rooted in the importance of epstein and hoyer maintaining a reputation as people who can’t be pushed around in a trade.
as for the A’s, the part of the formula we want to follow is their organization doing a good job identifying and developing talent. this is something the A’s do exceptionally well, and it’s something epstein believes in just as strongly. the part of the formula the cubs are lucky not to have to follow is the bit where they can’t attack the FA market, or can’t hold onto their players when they become stars. epstein is fortunate there in that the cubs generate more revenue than the A’s, so he has the ability to spend some money when needed too.

when theo needs to, he should be able to get a license to spend at least what the rangers are spending. imagine the As were able to suddenly add 70 million to that payroll with the pieces they already have in place: would that not be a winning formula?
lastly, “And now they need to fight like hell just to make the wc spot this year.” what team doesn’t need to fight like hell? there’s a whole lot of teams fighting like hell for a wild card spot (including the .500 boston red sox, who were third in spending with 173M), and none are doing it with as small a budget as the A’s. the phillies spent the second most of any team in the majors, and look at their record. hanging on to aging veterans, giving up a lot of young talent for players in their prime, signing big free agents and losing draft picks: these kind of maneuvers may help in the short term, but it comes back to a team eventually when their lineup gets old and there’s nobody ready to replace them internally.

Good thing Hendry is no longer the GM. He would “reward” Dempster just for being a hard working, loyal, good CUB and give him a 3 year (or longer) contract at his age? Please. If Dempster is not traded by the deadline for some prospects I will consider it a failure by the new regime which may cast much suspicion as to their ability to do what they say. For all those thinking that by keeping Dempster for a few more years in order for him to add victories because all he needed was more run support…THE RUN SUPPORT WON’T EVEN ARRIVE IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS. He must be traded while the leverage exists. There were years a “bad” Dempster showed up, we and other teams are certainly aware of his history and he may not bring as much in return as we would hope anyway.

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